Three times a year, every Jewish man was supposed to come to Jerusalem to give thanks. Their Thanksgiving, like ours, was in the fall. They called it the Feast of Tabernacles, or Booths, though, because people built temporary shelters out in the fields to sleep in overnight, that is if they slept at all. Things could get pretty rowdy; there were usually a lot of weddings right after Tabernacles. But it wasn’t the most important religious feast, any more than our Thanksgiving is. The biggest feast of all was the spring Passover, when they celebrated God’s rescue of Israel from slavery in Egypt. But this year it hadn’t been an occasion for thanksgiving, not for Peter and James and the others; in fact, the worst days of their lives began the night they celebrated the Passover feast with their beloved Master. For a while they thought they would never want to celebrate anything ever again.
But things were different, now. Ever since Jesus started appearing among them, talking to them, even eating with them, and they finally grasped that he was really alive, they had shared a sense of dizzying expectation. They didn’t know exactly what it was going to be, but since God had raised Jesus from the dead, anything could happen! Since Jesus - their rabboni Jesus - really was the Messiah, everything they had longed for was just around the corner! Something was going to happen, Jesus said so, God would give them power and Israel would be restored and Jesus was going to come back and rule, he was going to be king just as they had thought he would and they just had to sit tight in Jerusalem for it all to happen. Jesus said so.
So they all stayed in Jerusalem, just as Jesus had told them to. It wasn’t just the Twelve, either, Jesus’ mother Mary was with them all the time, ever since Jesus had told John to look after her they had been practically inseparable. All of his brothers were there, too! That was really astonishing. Everybody could remember how skeptical they had been when Jesus was preaching and healing around Galilee in the beginning. But they had seen him alive, too, so there they were. All in all there were over a hundred of Jesus’ followers right there in Jerusalem, and even though they couldn’t stay together all the time - after all, no one had a house big enough for that many! they gathered every day on the temple steps to pray and sing, to talk over all that had taken place and to speculate on what was going to happen next, and how soon Jesus would come back.
Of course they noticed the hubbub going on around the city as it prepared for the onslaught of visitors for the third pilgrim festival. And of course they would all go to the temple to give thanks by presenting their sacrifices of two loaves of bread, commemorating the wheat harvest. It was celebrated 49 days, seven times seven, a week of weeks after Passover, so it was called the Feast of Weeks. The Greek-speakers called it Pentecost, though, which means 50th.
And of course the disciples knew that this was also the day on which Moses had brought the law down from Mt. Sinai over a thousand years before, the very day the 12 tribes became a nation belonging to God. So when they brought their loaves to the temple, they would celebrate the renewal of the covenant - of course. That’s what they did every year.
But - wait a minute. Hadn’t Jesus said, on the night before he was crucified, “This is the blood of a new covenant“? [Luke 22:20] What about the old covenant? What a time this would be for something to happen! Because after all, Jesus changed the meaning of the Passover - when the blood of the lamb on the doorposts was a sign to the angel of death to pass over those households - when he became the Lamb that was sacrificed to give God’s people life. Now his blood was the sign for the angel of death to pass over God’s people. But what new kind of celebration do you suppose it could be? How could Jesus change this festival into something new? What would happen? It could be anything!
...When God called Moses, he spoke from a bush which burned with a fire that did not consume...
...When Moses gave God’s law to the tribes, some rabbis taught, all the nations of the world heard them...
...And when the hand of the LORD brought Ezekiel into a valley filled with dry bones, the breath of God blew like wind upon the multitude of the slain, and “a vast multitude lived, and rose to their feet...” [Ezek 37:10]
But the disciples weren’t expecting anything like that. They weren’t expecting wind, or fire, or voices. If they were expecting anything in particular, it was for Jesus to come back in clouds of glory. Jesus had said that’s what he was going to do! So when they gathered that morning in the upper room, to pray before taking their offering to the temple, nothing could have been further from their minds than what happened.
"Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability." [v. 2:2-4]
And the wind filled their sails and blew them out into the street and up the hill toward the temple, and the flame that was lit within them came forth in words that caught the people of Jerusalem like a spark on a dry prairie.
I wonder what must it have been like to be among the crowd that thronged to Jerusalem’s temple on that day. These were devout men and women, who loved God enough to come long distances - some had traveled for weeks, from Rome and Egypt and Persia - to attend a special worship service, sort of like going to Bethlehem for Christmas. The audience were people who followed the law as their expression of devotion to their God, people not given to religious ecstasies; they no doubt would have been right at home worshiping with us Presbyterians, decently and in order. Some were just plain shocked. “They’re drunk!” they said , “and at this hour, too!” But others were willing to stop and listen. And this is what they heard Peter say:
"Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning! No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy...And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'“ [v. 2:14-21]
And those who listened heard the Word of God in their own language and it pierced their hearts. They heard the Word of God about the salvation of Jesus Christ and knew it was meant for them. Luke tells us that 3,000 were added that day to those who already believed. How on earth can this be? People don’t change just like that! It’s not as though Jesus himself were there, preaching and healing as he had when he was among them. And it’s not as though the pilgrims were prepared for something like this! At most they would have heard about what happened at the last festival, about an itinerant preacher who got on the wrong side of the authorities and wound up crucified. They had no reason to believe the story these Galileans were telling! These decent, godly folk were just going to church - and they walked into a miracle.
Do you come to church expecting a miracle?
I think we all believe in miracles, we all know that God is no less powerful today than 2,000 years ago. Some of us have witnessed miracles. Some of us have participated in them. But somehow, I think, we grow out of the habit of expecting miracles.
Why do you suppose that is?
Sometimes, I think, it is because we don’t want to be in the position of telling God what to do. The most devout prayer of all is the one Jesus prayed on Gethsemane: “Not what I want but what you want." [Mt 26:39] And that, of course, is where we all want to be in our faith. But it doesn’t violate that principle to give all of our concerns to God. If you’re in touch with God all the time, of course you’re talking about everything from hoping you don’t run out of gas to fussing over balancing your checkbook. It’s ok to tell God what you want for Christmas, or that you’re mad at the cat - or your boss. Telling God everything, knowing that He hears, and not being disappointed just because we don’t get everything we’ve mentioned is NOT what I mean when I say we’ve gotten out of the habit of expecting miracles.
Nor am I suggesting that we lack faith in our prayers for friends and loved ones. We know God will hear, we confidently expect God to be with them, and to sustain them, and to comfort them... and sometimes he heals. We know that sometimes God does heal. And so we ask for healing, as James tells us to, but when we do, we also say, “Not what I want but what you want,” because life and death are in God’s hands, and nowhere does he promise us immortality in this life.
I’m not talking about the kind of miracles that are responses to particular prayers. I am talking about the power of the Holy Spirit to be active in the ministry of the chuch. I am talking about the difference between the fruits of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is the evidence of the working out of God’s character within us, to conform us to the image of Christ. And I see the fruits of the spirit among us in abundance, here in this church, and in Presbyterian and Methodist and Baptist and Lutheran churches all over the country. Even in Catholic churches! But the gifts of the Spirit are for accomplishing the work of God in the world, so the prayer “not what I want but what you want” doesn’t apply. The gifts of the Spirit are given in order that we might do the will of God.
It’s too easy to say, “That was then, this is now. We can’t expect what happened in the early church to be duplicated in the 20th century.” And to some extent, of course, that is true. And that’s another reason why our expectation of miracles has been lowered. We know that the first disciples were mistaken in their belief that Jesus would return before their own time on earth was up - and so we get caught up in the day-to-day living of our lives, as they, believing in his imminent return, did not think they had to do. Is there a connection between accepting that we may not live to see Jesus return, and a dwindling expectation that God will perform mighty acts in our midst? Think about it. I think one of the reasons it’s important to study the book of Revelation - even though I’m breaking the pattern for this special day - is to keep us alive to the reality of Jesus’ expected return, to keep us in the habit of expecting to see God working out his will in our lives and in our world.
Because the Holy Spirit does work now. What else explains the new acceptance of professions of faith in the media in the last year or two? What else explains the phenomenal growth of the church in China while nobody was looking? What else explains the phenomenal response to the Billy Graham crusades - most recently in Germany? What else explains the courage of the thousands of Christian martyrs who are persecuted - even dying - for their faith today in hostile corners of the world like Indonesia and Vietnam?
Perhaps another part of the reason we gotten out of the habit of expecting miracles is that we have taken a little too seriously Paul’s admonition to conduct worship “decently and in order.” [1 Cor 14:40] And mind you, I’m saying this as one who really likes Presbyterian worship, old hymns, responsive readings, and knowing what comes next, and I know that ending on time - well, more or less - is important, we have places to go and people to see, we have obligations that need to be met. But - there are churches in Africa and South America and some places even here in the United States where people gather spontaneously to praise God and pray for 2 or 3 hours or even more. Could any of us do that? Are any of us crazy enough in love with God to do that? Is Sunday worship a privilege and a delight, or a duty? And how often do we stop during the day, to spontaneously tell out our delight in God, or meet with friends to rejoice together in the gifts of God?
The Holy Spirit, like “the wind, blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” [Jn 3:8] We cannot command the Spirit, but we can be ready. We can lay the fuel ready for the fire of the Holy Spirit to burn among us; we can set our sails to catch the wind when it comes. How do we do it? What can we learn from Peter and the others?
They read the Scriptures to remind themselves of what God had done, and to find out what they should do. They gathered together regularly to praise God and pray. And they were excited about what Jesus had done, and expected him to do even more, and looked for it every day.
Prayer, praise, Scripture, the more time we spend in these the more excited we become about what Jesus has done and can do. And the more excited we get about Jesus, the more time we spend in prayer and praise. One feeds the other. Remember that God inhabits the praise of His people: the Holy Spirit prompts us to praise, and becomes visible in praise. Prayer, praise, and scripture are the fuel that feed the flame of the Spirit. These are available to us at all times. We have the fuel. We are the fuel.
But what about the sails? Are we turned in the right way to catch the wind of the Spirit? If we are folded inward on ourselves, we won’t catch the wind. If we want to soar over the waters, we have to shake ourselves out and turn ourselves outward.
Because it has been God’s purpose from the beginning to use his chosen ones to be his witnesses to the world; he has never meant his salvation to be a secret. From the Exodus on, all those who wished to be part of God’s household were welcomed gladly, and given a place within the covenant. Some rabbinical scholars even believe that the last straw, so to speak, that caused God to turn from Israel and make a new covenant with the Gentiles through Christ was the reluctance of Abraham’s descendants to extend knowledge his law to all nations. Our job as the body of Christ is to proclaim the gospel, and it is to that work that the Holy Spirit empowers us. Are we ready for that purpose?
Let us confidently expect the Holy Spirit to be at work among us. Let us continue to study the Scriptures, let us look forward eagerly for opportunities to pray together, and praise God together - for there is power in the gathered people of God. And let us remember what Jesus has done - for us and for all - and be excited! For we are not in the position of the unsuspecting people who came to Jerusalem and walked into a miracle. We are the people who are already part of an ongoing miracle - and don’t want to miss a minute of it!
